One Tree After Another 🌳
Dig a hole and drop it in… or so you would think! Nope! Nothing about the style of farming we are doing comes easy. Let’s be real, farming is super tough work. I do not think either of us could have imagined just how hard it would all be. We should have had an idea when our dear friend Matt said, “definitely get the tractor if you want to save your body.” Boy oh boy. Three words we find ourselves saying A LOT. Well… a whole lot of other ones too, but we will keep it PG.😝
After spending the last couple of months trenching our Big Momma Mound, 6 ft wide by 3 ft deep by 180 ft long, laying in strategic layer after layer of pine, oak and cottonwood that “builds the pyramid” of this mound, hand packing each layer with dirt and finally VERY CAREFULLY back filling the mound with the excess dirt, it is now time to actually PLANT OUR FRUIT TREES!! 😊
We learned the hard way with our first 50 ft mound that we should leave space at the top of the mound for each tree, because let us tell you… it is NO FUN to spend days (literally days) hand packing layers of dirt and backfilling to just turn around and dig, dig, dig our hearts away to make a home for each tree. Seal is never ceasing to amaze and learn from our process and came up with a magnificent method for getting these babes in the ground!
STEP 1 for making your life a lot easier: We layed out each handmade gopher cage along the spine of the Big Momma Mound, according to what makes sense for the growth of each fruit tree. There was lots and lots of planning on Seal’s part with regards to number of hours of sunlight, companion plants, water flow when it rains and how it hits and of course, suggested distance between trees. From there, (here is the magic!), we inserted snazzy and inexpensive Home Depot “Do it Right” 5 gallon buckets in the center of each cage so that we could methodically back fill the center of the cage.
STEP 2 for making your life a lot easier: We hand shoveled nutrient rich soil (a combination of our compost soil, existing dirt and organic mushroom compost collected from our dear friends over at Mushbarn!) that we then filled in the center of each cage.
STEP 3 for the finale: We were then able to delicately pull back just enough soil to get these babes moved into their new homes!!
Our Big Mamma Mound is now home to 43 fruit and berry 🍇🥝 varieties that include: Black Satin Blackberry, Southmoon Blueberry, Black Mission Fig, Violette De Bourdeaux Fig, Chicago Hardy Fig, Flame Seedless Grape, Concord Grape, Goji Berry, Kashmir Pomegranate and finally Heritage Raspberry.
-🧡Seal + Dove
